Under U.S. law, foreign terrorist organizations are formally designated by the U.S. Secretary of State. Tren de Aragua was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the Department of State on February 20, 2025, as published in the Federal Register, following an announcement by the Trump administration around that date.
“Jackpotting” is a kind of high‑tech bank robbery where criminals infect an ATM with malware or special hardware so it spews out cash on command, as if it hit a jackpot. In the Nebraska Tren de Aragua cases, prosecutors say conspirators broke into ATMs, installed Ploutus malware (often by swapping in a pre‑loaded hard drive or using a USB device), sent hidden commands to the machine’s cash‑dispensing module to force it to eject large amounts of money, and then tried to erase the malware to hide the theft while moving and laundering the stolen funds.
Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV) is a Justice Department task force created in August 2019 to coordinate a whole‑of‑government effort to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy the transnational gang MS‑13; it has since been expanded to target Tren de Aragua as well. According to DOJ, JTFV includes multiple U.S. Attorney’s Offices (such as the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York; Eastern and Western Districts of North Carolina; Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia; Southern District of Florida; Eastern District of Texas; Western District of Oklahoma; Northern District of Indiana; and the District of Nevada), along with DOJ’s National Security Division, Criminal Division, and Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. Its core law‑enforcement partners are the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
In the Southern District of New York, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores is charged in an indictment with leading Tren de Aragua’s transnational criminal and terrorist activities. The SDNY and DOJ describe the charges as a racketeering (RICO)‑style conspiracy involving his leadership of TdA and responsibility for murders, kidnappings, extortion, maiming, and other acts of violence and terrorism across multiple countries, as well as coordinating multi‑ton cocaine shipments from Venezuela to the United States. Public reporting indicates he is a fugitive and subject to a U.S. State Department reward of up to $5 million, but no public Interpol Red Notice or separate international arrest warrant document is available in open sources beyond these U.S. charges and the reward announcement.
Public documents say U.S. law enforcement is working with foreign partners but give only a general picture of how this will happen. The Justice Department notes that its Office of International Affairs and judicial attachés (for example, in Bogotá, Colombia) assist Joint Task Force Vulcan in coordinating with foreign authorities, while the State Department has offered up to $5 million for information leading to Guerrero Flores’s arrest, encouraging international tips and cooperation. Treasury and Justice also highlight ongoing collaboration with international law‑enforcement and financial‑intelligence partners to trace money laundering networks supporting Tren de Aragua. However, detailed operational plans or specific agreements with Venezuelan, Colombian, or other governments about arresting and extraditing TdA leaders are not described in available public records.
The nationwide TdA crackdown press materials emphasize arrests and prosecutions, but they do not lay out a special, TdA‑specific victim‑assistance program. Victims and affected communities are instead covered by existing federal systems: U.S. Attorney’s Offices and investigative agencies are required to provide crime‑victim rights and services in federal cases, often funded and guided by the Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), which supports counseling, compensation, relocation, and other aid for victims of violent and terrorism‑related crimes. Publicly available documents on the Tren de Aragua cases do not list additional tailored protections beyond these standard federal victim‑service frameworks, so any extra support, if it exists, is not clearly described in open sources.